Can't Drive A Car Without The Key
by Zarius
Summary: Snuggles is losing his nerve over a failing card game and Dawn is losing her temper over the prize. Put them together in a parking lot and fireworks are sure to go off...but just suppose they did? Snuggles isn't sure what happened, can he trust Dawn to tell him? Can Dawn trust him to know?


**DANGER MOUSE:**

**CAN'T DRIVE A CAR WITHOUT THE KEY**

**WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

(**Soundtrack:** _If There Was A Man_ from _The Living Daylights_ by John Barry)

As the cards were dealt to the players, Snuggles eyed up his competition with a sense of purpose. Tonight, these acquaintances, Duckula would be his prey. He would truly spoil himself on the ill-gotten trinkets they had agreed to place on the line in this game of Pluck Casino.

Waiting outside the hotel, pacing back and forth, was Dawn Crumhorn, who was up far past her bedtime.

Within an hour of contesting with Duckula, it soon became clear it wasn't going in Snuggle's favour. He was struggling with the rules of the game, indeed he had not let on this was his first time ever at trying a card game of any sort. All he had to show was raw ambition, but no strategy to bear it out.

When a time out was called, Snuggles stepped out of the hotel looking quite drained of energy; he slumped on to the hood of a nearby car and breathed heavily.

Dawn leapt on to the hood and knelt comfortably into his lap.

"I'm tired" she said.

"That makes two of us" Snuggles said.

"Is this the car you're trying to win in there?" she said excitedly

"No pet, this is" Snuggles said, pointing to the left of him, Dawn frowned as she spotted it, a giant bronze iron duck attached to four large wheels.

Dawn huffed and crossed her arms, which annoyed Snuggles.

"Dawn, don't pout" he said.

"I'm not riding along in that; my friends will all laugh at me"

"Oh don't be childish"

"I _am_ a child, I can act any way I like"

"Simmer down, you'll make a scene"

"Good, I've always fancied directing"

"You couldn't direct traffic"

"If you were driving that thing over there, you'd be in traffic school straight afterwards"

Snuggles was taken aback.

"There is nothing wrong with the way I drive"

"I get carsick every time you drive me to school; you always cross over the bumps in the road"

"Those are legal speed bumps; you want me to end up with a ticket?"

A couple of exquisitely dressed socialite antelopes strolled past the bickering pair, and found themselves most amused by what was going on.

"I say, it's a rather splendid tiff going on here what?"

"Oh I concur my dear, such delicious drama, remember how much fuss we made when we were young?"

Dawn and Snuggles couldn't help but catch wind of the pair's conversation; they stared at one another, taken aback by the words they'd been exchanging, and how raw and biting they had been, full of bluster and fury, yet beneath it all, a sense of passion and playfulness.

"I say, do press on will you my munchkins, we do so like to be reminded of old passions" called out the male socialite, raising a glass of bucks fizz to them.

"I say dear, isn't that the tycoon Crumhorn's daughter? Whatever is she doing up at this time of night?"

"You need someone to tuck you in dear? Or are you too old for teddy bear picnics these days?"

"Another word from you and you'll find life is no picnic" said Snuggles, cracking his paws like they were knuckles.

"Yes, well, there are ways to request your privacy young bear, none of them as rude as that, come along dear" uttered the socialite, wrapping his arm around his wife's own and escorting one another off the car park premises and back into the hotel.

"Oh, I say, do leave my car alone, and don't scratch it with your ghastly paws" he yelled from inside.

Snuggles sat on the edge of the car and shook his head.

"Solve everything with violence, typical of me isn't it?"

Dawn smiled.

"Never go against type"

"Yeah, things don't exactly go so well when we change things around, like you with your terrible teens"

"What was so terrible about them? I never looked more fetching"

"Yeah, but you also tried letting go of childish things, you tried letting go of me, I guess you not thinking much about the duck got me fired up, got me to think about those times again"

"Oh Mr. Snuggles, don't remind either of us of those nasty memories"

"Yeah, but you can't turn off that kind of hurt Dawn, you can't bury them, every now and then, an argument, however slight, an exchange of words, however small, can trigger them"

"This isn't fair Mr. Snuggles; I'm far too weary to be dealing with this cheap adult drama"

"How do you think I feel? I'm a toy you brought to life, a toy, something kids play with all day and all of the night, I thought it was gonna be you and me having fun times forever. The kind of playtime kids in love with inanimate objects dream of, but when your dad first went to prison, and then went to space, all you had left was me. You wouldn't grow up, so I had to. Then, when you decided '_hey, wouldn't growing up actually be a cool thing to do today'_, you cast me aside"

"I thought we moved past that"

Snuggles clutched her hand.

"We did, we did pet, but it stays with you, all of it, and the idea it could all come rushing back as soon as I disappoint you in some fashion is what motivates me to push myself beyond my limits, to risk more to make you happy"

Snuggles could tell Dawn wasn't listening. She tilted her head upward, let out a disappointed tut, and glanced upwards at the bleak curtain of night;_ very_ few stars had come out to play.

It occurred to Snuggles that perhaps this was one of those instances where she didn't know what type of person she wanted to be tonight.

"Oh, I see. Yeah, everything's quite clear" Snuggles said with a slur in his voice, feeling like he somehow out of touch with her tastes. No child could ever be wrong around him; it was his job to be more attentive.

Dawn sensed the struggle within Snuggles, and her temper simmered, she realised what she was doing, recognised that he was beginning to reflect on previous bouts of rejection, previous times she had blamed him for not taking her needs into direct consideration.

"I always place my head in the lion's mouth where you're concerned, but I'm no lion tamer" Snuggles replied, burying his paws in his hands.

"Snuggles, look at me" Dawn said, her voice sounding a tad different, less grating, a bit more lyrical and deeper pitched.

_Older._

Snuggles cleared his head from his paws and caught sight of a breathtaking visual.

Dawn draped in black from head to toe, long raven hair flowing, a hue of molten black energy wisps seeping from her hair with a quick flick, encircling her and Snuggles.

"You tame me just fine"

Dawn stared before him a strong confident woman, nursing her tiara in her hand; the energy flicked from her hair coiling around Snuggles. Soon they were both wrapped snugly together in a velvet cocoon.

Dawn suddenly knew exactly what she wanted to be tonight, what she _needed_ to be.

A few minutes passed and the cocoon opened, the energy coils gently deposited Snuggles down on to the bonnet of the car, and Dawn reverted back to her child form.

She leant over to Snuggles, who looked dazed and distant, his eyes swirling, and a cushy and satisfied purring emitting from him.

Dawn softly slapped his face a couple of times to bring him around.

"What happened in there?" he said, slurring.

"You fell asleep" Dawn said.

"Why?" he asked

"Something happened, and you fell asleep" she replied.

"What sort of something?" Snuggles said. Dawn giggled

"We had a talk, I think, or did that come after?"

"Why can't I recall correctly?" Snuggles probed.

"You had too much on your mind, check the time to see what I mean"

Snuggles did so, pulling out a pocket watch from the right side of his furry body.

"I've got five minutes on the clock before the game resumes, I have to get back in" he said, sliding off the bonnet of the car and dusting himself down.

Dawn kicked her feet up in the air excitedly.

Snuggles looked back at her, unsure of whether or not to greet her with an embracing smile or a look of cautionary discipline.

"Dawn, you wouldn't keep something from me would you?" he said.

"I'm going by what I know, something happened, we talked, you fell asleep"

"Are you _sure_ it was in that order?"

"You remember it going differently?"

"Pretty sure all we did was talk, and then I nodded off"

"And then something happened?"

"I don't recall if anything happening"

"You'd tell me if something did right?"

"Well you're not telling me"

"I'm only comfortable knowing if you know"

"Maybe I do, but perhaps I just trust you to let me know"

Dawn hummed a small lullaby to herself.

"All well and good then, I trust you, you trust me, we're a trusting family"

"What if it was just more talking?" Snuggles suggested

"Talk, talk, talk...that's such a social thing to do isn't it? The kind of thing that just exhausts you, something that puts you to sleep, the sort of thing that makes you want something else to happen" said Dawn, laying down on the roof of the car and slowly beginning to drift off herself.

Snuggles reached into the back of his own mind, struggling to piece together what exactly happened in the cocoon.

He briefly turned to what he was feeling, but began drifting more towards what he was _dreaming_.

That was what it was, wasn't it?

Maybe he dreamed all of it, and, like some dreams, he could not fully recall what had occurred in it, the moments and memories lost to time, time he could ill afford to dwell on, for there was a game to win.

As he made his way back into the hotel, and back towards the casino lounge and the gambling table, where Duckula was greeting him with a slick and sly look of total ownership, Snuggles thought back more to how he was feeling in that dream, rather than what the dream, and the talk within, were actually all about.

And what he felt motivated him to do his best in the game that was about to play out.

He felt he had made an _effort_ there.

A genuine, heartfelt effort to please a soul as pure to him as the gift of life.

A soul that, despite her occasional forays into wild temper and sheer nerve of cheek, was grateful for the work he was putting in, and had thanked him for it in her own way.

Whether that was words of reassurance, or a gentle soothing of his anxieties, or something else entirely, something the two perhaps subconsciously trusted one another to keep private, it didn't matter.

It worked.

He was back where he was, and regardless if he won or lost, that person would still be waiting for him.

For now, the dream was over, and he had never felt so _awake_.

He reached out to Duckula, and with one swift flick of his finger, sent him rocketing across the room into a couple of vending machines. When he opened his beak, gold coins came spewing out and he found himself swamped by selfish casino addicts.

"He can keep his duck, I'm treading up" he said.

He pointed towards the antelope socialite he had met earlier.

"I want _him_" he said.

"You want to try your luck with me? What would you have me wager?" he said.

Snuggles grinned, his smirk actually managing to intimidate the socialite despite not quite having the success rate.

"Can't drive a car without the key" he said.

Outside, Dawn Crumhorn's eyes snapped open and she began to count more stars in the sky as they appeared. A couple of them were descending to Earth.

She'd normally make a wish at this point, but she felt such an action was trivial.

For she had picked up a fallen star, the one she would always place her trust in, and had sent it back into the stratosphere to again light her path, and be the envy of all those other stars.

**Well, dear readers...what do YOU think happened? The outcome is intended to be entirely ambiguous so you can take it however you like-Zarius**


End file.
